Harsh Conditions
by x Veela x
Summary: This has had a mulititude of previous names. Yet again, she strikes back with another fantabulous OliverxKatie fic... xx
1. Simply Fetching

**Disclaimer: No, despite my wishes, Oliver Wood is not mine, he is Katie's, who were both created by JKR, not me.**

**I wish she said what I thought I heard **

_Chapter 1 – Simply fetching_

The freezing rain had soaked the team to their skin, the usual rich bright red, turning into a dark vermilion.

"Bell! Come on!" The Captain was screaming over the howling wind at his team, urging his chasers to shoot and score. Katie nearly missed the hoop as she dodged Harry who was spiralling towards the ground, his vision being obscured by the sheet of water covering his glasses.

Katie touched her hands together into a T sign and Oliver nodded, beckoning his team to the ground. When Harry had cleared his glasses with the spell Hermione had taught him, the team flew back into the air, with much protest from the Weasley twins.

Ten minutes later, Oliver shook his head, and pointed towards the ground, admitting defeat. Angelina and Alicia dived down as streaks of lightening light the pitch around them, accompanied shortly by a clap of thunder. In the midst of passing the quaffle, Katie dived back after it as Angelina streaked towards the ground.

She returned back into the changing rooms dodging the lightning as Oliver directed the bludgers back into the box with his wand while Harry summoned the snitch. She just had to do it the hard way.

"Katie, what were you doing? You could have got hit?" Oliver was looking down at her as the team headed into the showers. Katie shrugged, not wanting to admit she hadn't though of summoning the quaffle,

"I was simply fetching the quaffle." She replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Over the thunder, although Oliver saw Katie's mouth moving, all he heard was "simply fetching". He knew what she was saying, but he went to dinner that evening with those words in his head out into an entirely different context.

**Reviews would be appreciated xXx**


	2. The Height Of Perfection

**Disclaimer: Unless the world is keeping a massive secret from me, I am not the owner of the HP universe.**

**I wish she said what I heard**

_Chapter 2 – The Height Of Perfection_

"What's so funny now, Katie?" Katie had just managed to stumble into the Gryffindor common room being held up by Angelina and Alicia, all three of them drenched with rain, clutching her side with tears of laughter pouring down her cheeks.

"We decided to walk in the rain," a fresh burst of mirth descended upon her as the girls collapsed on the sofa opposite the Weasley twins, "and," more amusement, we were walking like this." Angelina got up and hauled Alicia to her feet. This required a demonstration. They started far away at the other end of the room and linked arms, "Right foot first," Alicia decided. Angelina put a foot forward, "the other right." Alicia added. They stepped in sync with each other, but the foot nearest the other went towards the other's pacing direction until they reached the sofa again. The twins exchanged apprehensive looks with each other,

"Riiiiight…" They chorused.

"And we all leaned toward Katie, 'cos she was on the end, and she slipped on the grass and fell over." This brought about more waves of laughter.

"Erm, ha ha?" Fred offered. Angelina slapped his wrist and told him to shut up.

"But it was in front of-" Oliver Wood stepped through the portrait hole and the girls decided that they couldn't form coherent sentences anymore.

Oliver shook his head and lowered himself into a chair, taking Quidditch Through The Ages out. A bookmark fell out and George swooped down on it. Picked it up and stared at it. Fred let out a low whistle.

"Ol-iv-ER!" Now, now, now, what do we have here?" Oliver's mouth suddenly curved into a kind of embarrassed smirk as the twins stared at the picture.

Katie looked over the boys' shoulders and sat back down, "I am," Angelina and Alicia replaced her and shrieked as they stared at Oliver. "Well aware that some people consider that slut," Katie looked at them meaningfully until they moved back to sit with her, "the height of perfection, but-" Katie was still making comments about the girl's figure, but Oliver's mind had _unconsciously_ taken the middle out of her sentence.

"And _some _girls just don't possess that kind of grace." Angelina added and smirked at Katie. _Hang on, I think I've missed part of that link,_ Fred and George chuckled and Oliver joined in and mentally contributed, _I agree_. Katie stared at him.

"Why are you laughing? You said you wouldn't laugh at me." Oliver immediately stopped. _Maybe it wasn't so mentally._

"I'm sorry, what?" The evils he got from Angelina and Alicia were enough to tell him he had done something wrong.

"You said you wouldn't laugh at me. Why are you laughing?" Katie repeated. All traces of her smile were gone and her eyes were glassy. Oliver was sure those tears threatening to fall were not of happiness. His mind raced through all the possible excuses he could give her, but knew they would only end up getting him in more trouble. He decided on telling her the truth and looked meaningfully at Alicia and Angelina.

Katie's tone was icy, "Whatever you want to say to me can be said in front of them, I'll just tell them what you said anyway."

Oliver cleared his throat," All right then. I'm just going to say this and you'll probably hate me for it, but I'll just say it anyway. I wasn't paying attention to the conversation because when the girls were laughing, I missed out some of your sentence." He took another glance at the two wide-eyed chasers either side of Katie and plunged on, "And, I thought you said, _I am the height of perfection_." Angelina and Alicia stood up and removed Fred and George from the sofa, leaving Katie and Oliver on their own.

Oliver was about to open his mouth again, when a gaggle of third years flocked to the fireplace, the two best sofas having been vacated. He gave up and shut his mouth again, hiding behind his book. Katie continued to stare at him, _did he just say what I thought he did?_

**Reviews would be appreciated xXx**


	3. Highs and Lows

**Disclaimer: Sigh, do you really need me to keep telling you I don't own it? **

**I hope this helps to explain Chapter 2 as some of you found it confusing…**

**The Ravenclaw girl purposely does not have a name so that Katie can invent _creative _names for her later on and so that you are still on Katie's side. The use of "her" rather than a name also helps Oliver's delusion.**

**I wish she said what I heard**

_Chapter 3 – Highs and Lows_

Usually Katie's powers of observation were admired, requested and envied. Today, Alicia and Angelina loathed them. It wasn't just dislike of the skill that enclosed Katie in her dorm in a melancholy mood, it was pure hatred, abhorrence, despisement and detest.

Her voice was muffled by her knees, but Katie's support team managed to decipher her every syllable. "He was on a high and I don't mean from sugar or drink, I know it!"

Angelina and Alicia swapped puzzled glances before the former spoke up rather timidly, "Well, what _do_ you mean?"

In return, Katie's head rose to gave her a withering look before returning to their original position before Katie carried on with her rant, "How else would that have happened? Our own sexy Scottish Quidditch Captain as well – in _love_? It was that Ravenclaw he was "talking to" at breakfast, more like flirting with – I'm sure of it!"

Alicia lifted Katie's head up again to face them as the latter moved to sit at the tip of their human triangle on Angelina's bed. Angelina reached underneath her bed to rummage around for a much needed bar of chocolate. As she shared the treasure out, she told Katie, "Kates, he's not _ours_ he's _yours_."

Katie swallowed a piece and wailed, "But he's not!" Her eyes were sparkling with unshed tears again, "he was just saying that he thought I was, well…" She broke off uncertainly.

"No, he wasn't," Alicia contradicted, "I get the feeling that he was telling you the truth. What happened, yesterday after we went, anyway?" She asked, trying unsuccessfully to steer towards a subtle change of topic.

Katie looked at her, biting her lip in thought, "A load of third years came and I went upstairs before he could say anything else." She drew the subject back, "But what if he wasn't? Telling the truth, I mean, what if he's tucked up somewhere now with her? What if it all meant –"

Angelina interrupted before Katie could worry herself with any more "what ifs" with a logical one of her own, "What if you go and find him and ask him?"

A few minutes later, Katie was on the trail of one Oliver Wood.

Oliver thrashed about in an armchair, fidgeting whilst waiting futilely for Katie to come downstairs. He knew exactly where she was and also knew that if he tried to get up the stairs, they would turn into a slope that would send him sliding down to land at the feet of the laughing common room. She'd been up there for ages, she had to come down _soon_ wouldn't she? He scanned the common room and spotted the twins without his other two chasers and realised that all three girls would probably be clustered up there until five minutes before dinner. Eventually he gave up and went to stroll the halls, his usual weekend pursuit aside from Katie-watching or quidditch.

He walked not knowing or caring where his feet took him. Oliver was desperately trying every technique he could to get Katie off his mind, but none of them were succeeding. He noticed that he was meandering in the dimly lit passage that led to his qudditch office, when suddenly a pair of graceful hands was placed on each of his shoulders with a tinkling laugh from behind him. He looked down at the perfectly manicured talons with a blue decoration on each, declaring one of the colours of her house. The thought, "_Oh no."_ Was screening through his brain on repeat.

"Trying to get her off your mind?" His brain froze, wanting to push her away but her scent paralyzed his limbs; numbly he nodded. She laughed again, "maybe this'll help". As she pushed one hand over his shoulder to trail down his torso, turning herself around to face him, on hand entangling in his hair, Oliver knew that he was in trouble and that the chances of him escaping from it were slim; slim enough to have been on a very strict diet for a couple of years. He would never manage to say "no" now, no matter how many tearful Katies swam to the front of his vision.

Suddenly the hair he was taking out was mousey blonde; the scent he was breathing from the girl's neck was lavender. Her breasts diminished under his hands to a more _manageable_ size and her waist shrank along with her height in proportion until he was looking into Katie's eyes.

The girl had been pressing her lips against Oliver's with her back not far from the wall. To an onlooker it would seem that Oliver had pressed her against and was taking full advantage of the opposing force the wall presented. Trust that onlooker to be Katie. She backed silently away, her mouth open. Not paying attention to the floor, she stumbled and tripped, then caught herself and ran back down the corridor.

Katie ran as fast as she could, not caring about the clatter of her shoes on the stone and leaving and leaving a path of tears across her cheeks to drip over her clothes. She breathed the password to the Fat Lady and scampered up the stairs. Halfway up she tripped again and the world went black as her body collapsed across the stairs.

Moments later, Oliver tore through the portrait hole to see Katie, at the last second remembering that his foot on the staircase would not help in his ascension of it. Unfortunately, his body was working faster than his brain and he watched hopelessly as Katie's battered and bruised body span and tumbled towards him, not being able to done anything about it. He yelled to Angelina and Alicia as he picked Katie up. The appeared at the top of the slope, their eyes wide and hands clapped to their mouths. Oliver looked down at the girl in his arms and felt a terrible wrench pulling at his stomach. _So this is what it's like to see your heart break_. Yes, he said that one aloud too.

**Go on, you know you want to press that tiny blue button and cause me much happiness and oxygen, ahem, I mean reviews… x x x**


	4. Hospital Wing?

**Disclaimer: I think soon there will be a new ward at St Mungo's for nutcases like us who go mad every time we have to face the truth – I don't own Harry Potter any more than you do.**

**Harsh Conditions Formerly "I wish she said what I heard"**

_Chapter 4 – Hospital Wing?_

In the calamity of the moment, Oliver's words whizzed by an unnerved Alicia and Angelina as Katie did not rise from her fall to escape Oliver's clutches. Both girls slid down the transformed staircase, worry etched on their faces as a crowd of Gryffindors swarmed around them, craning their necks to get a better eyeful of the commotion. Leanne scurried around the taller fourth years and gasped when she saw Oliver staring down at Katie, getting slightly panicky. She glared at him, as if it was his entire fault (which, of course, was at least partially true) and told him to put her down.

Oliver transferred his gaze from the unconscious Katie to the quivering Leanne, with her hands on her hips, attempting to display more authority than him. He was holding the girl who had survived horrific Quidditch injuries, fallen half a small house's height from her broomstick, crashed into … well, more or less everything, broken, sprained or twisted almost every part of her body, yet was felled by a staircase.

Alicia seemed to come to her senses first, putting a kindly arm around Leanne's shocked form, "I think Oliver better take Katie to the Hospital Wing, first." She said softly, whilst Angelina tried to shoo away gawking onlookers, "I don't think we should levitate her, just in case we accidentally drop her."

Leanne nodded, still shaken, though kept her steady fierce look upon Oliver as the girls curtly ushered him out the Portrait Hole. Percy Weasley poked his head over the staircase to the boys' dormitory and almost clapped his hands with glee as he peeked at the scene awaiting him. His badge pinned firmly to his robes, he strode confidently down the staircase, "Alright, move along, there's nothing to see here!" He called, gesturing with his hands for the throng to back off. "Let him through, move aside, Longbottom, Thomas. Kindly return to your homework –"

Percy's marshalling faded away, his calls to shepherd the House away from the Portrait hole diminishing as Oliver half ran to the Hospital wing, Leanne, Angelina and Alicia hot on his trail. They skidded down moving staircases, clattering along corridors and Leanne broke free of the chasers' hold to run ahead for Madame Pomfrey.

The generously proportioned Poppy Pomfrey appeared in view as Oliver brought Katie in. She gestured to an empty bed and hurried over to peer around Oliver at Katie,

"You can go now, Oliver." Angelina said coldly. He looked up in shock, surprised to hear such a tone coming from her. Usually she was good natured, though quick witted. He had imagined Katie might have been spinning all sorts of sour tales to the girls. He caught a last look at Katie, not wishing to stay under the angry glowers of his remaining chasers and Leanne. He stalked away, attempting not to appear affronted.

"Ooh dear," Madame Pomfrey clucked in her motherly tone, "A few bumps and bruises, have we? Another Quidditch practise, girls?" She asked as she opened a vial of blue liquid and dipped a piece of cotton wool fleetingly over it.

"No," Alicia replied as Madame Pomfrey began to dab at a rapidly rising bump over Katie's left cheek, "She fell backwards down the stairs. We don't think she was expecting Oliver to try and follow her." She said sharply with an acid bite in her tone. She could guess what had most likely happened before Katie fled the scene.

"I'm sure she'll be all right in the end." Madame Pomfrey soothed after her disapproving tutting at Oliver's lack of thought. She handed the vial and a clean piece of cotton wool to Leanne, who stopped her flitting about and hesitantly mopped up a few more of Katie's nastier scratches. She returned a few seconds later with a small bottle of clear Potion and poured a spoonful into Katie's open mouth and waited until she compulsively swallowed, "This will help her with the sting, dears." They were told as Madame Pomfrey began to check Katie's wrists and ankles for damage.

They all turned around as a shy girl they recognised as Eloise Midgen pushed the doors shut after her. Madame Pomfrey added softly to the cluster around Katie, "Now I think she'll just need some rest, but come and tell me when she wakes up." She began to walk over to Eloise, "Ah, Miss Midgen," she beamed, "How is your skin doing with that new Potion?"

The girls zoned out of the further conversation as Katie writhed slightly with a small moan. Alicia drew up a chair for her and Angelina as Leanne sat on the opposite edge of the bed, clearing up Katie's bruises, "Do you know what happened?" She asked the two chasers in a concerned voice.

Angelina and Alicia grimaced, "We know it's got something to do with Oliver," Alicia imparted, "Katie went to find him to ask about a conversation they'd been having, but we don't know any more." She took Katie's hand and the girl quieted.

"We think it might have something to do with that Ravenclaw he likes." Angelina added as she watched Katie carefully for signs of waking, "But it's stupid that that cow should even be on the scene!" She exclaimed, hissing like an angry cat, "He almost told Katie he liked her yesterday."

"I know," said Leanne darkly, "Katie told me. But I don't see why he couldn't just come out and say it, rather than beating about the bush. Honestly, he can be so idiotic and thick-skinned sometimes. She's liked him from second year. We can't think of any reason why he won't just pluck up the courage to ask her out other than the age gap." She added despairingly.

"That's ridiculous!" Alicia spluttered, "So what – she's a fourth year." She gestured at Leanne, "You're a fourth year too, but we all get on fine together." Leanne nodded and rolled her eyes,

"But you're in sixth year and Oliver's in seventh. This is part of her theory," She told them, reaching for another clean cotton ball, "That Oliver will think she's too young and immature and everything." She sighed, "It's nonsense really – she's one of the most mature in the year, unlike him."

Angelina gave a small laugh, "Yes, he can be a bit childish when it comes to Quidditch – but he is forgiven his obsession. We all have flaws, after all and –" She broke off as Katie let out another moan when Leanne touched a dark bruise already forming on her shoulder. Alicia tightened her grip as Katie's eyes snapped open and she blinked a couple more times, confronting the situation she was in.

"Hospital Wing?" She croaked, struggling to smile at her friends.

"Hospital Wing." They chorused. They had been in this situation plenty of times before; the customary question and respective answer had become a routine that occurred each time. Leanne rose to fetch Madame Pomfrey, who was finishing with her weekly check of poor Eloise Midgen, handing her care of Katie over to Angelina.

"Good to see you're awake so quickly," Madame Pomfrey bustled over to them, "I didn't expect you to surface for a good hour. How are you feeling?" She asked, putting a hand to Katie's forehead to check her temperature. "Hmm," she scrutinised Katie for a few seconds, "I'll give you some Cooling Potion as well – those bruises shouldn't like to stay with that." She smiled, searching for another Potion in the mass on a shelf in the centre of the ward.

Madame Pomfrey poured Katie a glass of icy water and added a few drops of the required Potion before handing it to her, "I'd like you to stay for another half an hour whilst the Potions get themselves settled and then you can go." Katie took the glass from her without complaint. As she gulped it down, she concluded that this would be one her shorter stays in the Hospital Wing.

_I'm really sorry this has taken me so long; I hope you haven't __all__ lost interest. Hopefully there will be another chapter for you in two week's time after I come back from abroad. Any reviews will be welcomed greatly xx_


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